J: Hey there, Jen Riday here, this is Vibrant Happy Women. So on my journey as a life coach and as a podcast host, I've come to realize very clearly that so many women are pulled in 1000 different directions and I feel like ‘me time’ is a vague memory from the past and they just crave more rejuvenation and progress towards their goals. If that sounds like you, then I have something great to offer you. Today is the official opening of the Vibrant Happy Living membership group. If you've always kind of wanted to have a life coach but find that a little bit over your price range, this is an affordable option to have all the tools, tricks, tips, and exercises that I offer my one-on-one clients, but you can do it in a group setting. Every month, you'll get access to 2 guided meditations, a Q&A group coaching call, a message from me, a Vibrant Happy Living virtual book club, a Facebook community, mantra printable, and more; and this is the perfect way for you to get motivated and start moving forward again on your journey of transformation. If you'd like to learn more, go to vibranthappyliving.com.

On last week's podcast interview, I talked with Esther Littlefield about how self-care and gratitude can improve your relationships. On today's episode, I had the pleasure of chatting with Theresa Lode about the mind-body effect on symptoms of fibromyalgia and other chronic pain. Theresa shares how journaling about the relationships between trauma, shame, and pain, as well as getting rid of the artifacts of her quote ‘I'm broken’ story have made all the difference her health. We'll go ahead and get started.

My guest today is Theresa Lode and she's a life organizer, writer, and owner of Life Uncluttered. While she offers organizing services for home or business, her favorite organizing is done in the hearts of women to help them tackle sacred clutter and heal from chronic pain. Teresa says she drinks way too much coffee and if that doesn't get her hyper enough, and these are her words, she can be found shaking what her mama gave her in Zumba class.

[Laughter]

J: Welcome, Teresa.

T: Hi there, Jen.

J: I’m so glad you could be on the show.

T: Well, I am just delighted, as I told you in our little chat beforehand, I've been listening to them and… and I just feel honored to be among these really awesome women, so thank you.

J: Yes, thank you. Well, we'd love to start out the show with our guest’s favorite quote or a life motto, and what would you like to share with us today?

T: You know, I was musing over this and I thought, “You know what? What I like to tell myself and others, ‘You are enough and you have enough.’” And it kind of goes with my organizing that people have too much stuff to begin with, but as I've been organizing and helping people deal with physical clutter, I realize there's all sorts of emotional and heart clutter also. And it all revolves around this shame thing, this, “You're not enough,” you know, “You're not pretty enough. You're not thin enough. You're not whatever enough.” So the model I try to live by is, “You are enough just as you are right now, no qualifications.”

J: Mm, wow, I've never thought about that before that there's a connection between feeling like you're enough and whether or not you like to hold on to clutter; is that what you're insinuating?

T: You know, I think there are some… you know, I want to be real careful that I don't make these sweeping generalizations with it. For me, with my… how I've looked at things, I've just seen and my healing has come through kind of seeing these physical examples and then internalizing them and applying them, you know, to my own soul and to my own emotional health.

J: Okay.

T: So does that make sense?

J: Yes, yes. And you said in your own journey, I… I have a feeling that will take us right your low point, so let's go ahead and go there.

T: Oh, okay.

[Laughter]

T: Well, we'll jump right into that. So I’m 51 years old, I'll be 52 in a few years or in a few… a few years…

J: (Laughs)

T: … in a few days.

J: That would be nice.

[Laughter]

T: Yes. And I think I've spent the majority of my adult life, oh, probably from mid-20s up until… I even still deal with it certain amount now, but with chronic pain. I used to joke that, if it had a tendon attached to it, it's probably had therapy. I've always enjoyed exercise and I remember at one time thinking, “Yeah, my exercise video will consist of me sitting in a wheelchair, flexing my 1 finger that doesn't hurt.”

J: Aww.

T: I mean, it was just one thing after another and chronic headaches. And so it brought me to this low point of coming home from the doctors (this was about 4 years ago) and I had gone in for another tendon or another something, and the doctor, he says, “Okay, turn around,” and he starts pushing on these points on my back and my neck and…and I was ready to swat his hand because I was like, “Don't do that! That hurts!” And he kind of turns me around he says, “Well, the tests for fibromyalgia is if you have 11 points out of 18 that are sensitive; these trigger points,” he said, “You have 18 that are sensitive.”

J: Oh, wow.

T: And so… yeah, so he made the fibromyalgia diagnosis. And now, with my nursing background, I had… you know, I probably figured that I probably had it, but I was careful about opening that door because I knew I would just, “Oh yeah,” and get depressed and freak myself out with Dr. Google. And so anyway. I got the diagnosis and part of me was relieved, the other part was devastated because I thought, “Is this my life now, dealing with insomnia, dealing with pain, dealing with these limitations, anxiety?” I always have an anxiety attacks which is part of the… I mean, it's a wicked… it's a wicked soup it is.

J: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

T: And I remember this one point of just laying on the couch and thinking, “Oh my god, this is what my life is,” and then… then being a good little, you know, performer and wife and homeschool mom, then I felt guilty for feeling that way.

J: Hmm.

T: So, you know, I couldn't even feel like crap without guilt.

[Laughter]

J: You couldn't have self-pity without feeling… yeah, I get… that’s funny.

T: No, I mean it was just… you know, if you remember those cartoon characters, the little angel and the little devil over the other… over each shoulder, I mean, that was a conflict that I was dealing with.

J: Mm-hmm.

T: So, yeah, it was… it was not fun and I know it wasn't fun for my family because I was constantly going out the door to see, you know, a physical therapist or a chiropractor. I even said that I would go see a shaman and have him wave a gourd over me if I thought it would help. (Laughs)

J: Ugh. So… so what turned all of that around?

T: What turned all that around is they remember that the Chinese proverb, “But when the student is ready, the teacher will appear.”

J: Ooh, yeah.

T: And I was consulting Dr. Google and came upon this book by Dr. John E. Sarno, he's… his first book was called ‘Healing Back Pain’. And the one that caught my eye was ‘The Divided Mind’ and it was on Amazon, I read the reviews, but I was also very skeptical because, probably about 6 years prior to that, I had picked up ‘Healing Back Pain’ and I was so incensed and offended and taken aback that this doctor could say that my back pain was in my head.

J: Hmm.

T: I mean, that… that's basically what I saw, and I thought, “How dare you! My back has been broken! I… you know, I had the MRIs to prove it and…”

J: Mm-hmm.

T: So, anyway, I threw it across the room and that was that. Well, here we go, I guess I had to hurt more for me to really open my mind to this. So I found this book called ‘The Divided Mind’ on Amazon, read the reviews and I consulted with a friend. And this friend was extremely credible to me, he was sort of a mentor to me so I respected his opinion, and I said, “What do you think about this guy and this message?” and he says, “My friend's wife was totally (unclear) [08:34] and bedridden with pain and was healed through this man's teaching.”

J: Hmm.

T: That gave me pause, but I was also really skeptical. But like I said, I was… I was hurting enough that I thought, “I need to dig into this and look at it more.

J: Mm-hmm.

T: So I took after the book and I began seeing myself on just about every page in this book. Dr. Sarno has a few theories. Now, this man is an MD, he was the head of the rehabilitative Institute at Rusk University, I believe, in New York.

J: Mm-hmm.

T: So this man has dealt with a lot of pain, a lot of people in pain, and he was really frustrated by the efficacy of these treatments that they were doing, even surgeries and people were still in pain. So he began to look at some of the work of Freud and… and other people and he came up with a theory that there were some personality factors that lent itself to people developing chronic pain.

J: Hmm.

T: And one of them was perfectionist tendencies.

J: Ah.

T: And, now, I'm not a perfectionist like, you know, I'd be a good architect, but perfectionist in that I'm just so hard on myself.

J: Hmm.

T: You know, wanting to be the perfect mom and the perfect whatever. That's a tendency that these people have; the perfectionist tendency. The other one is a tendency to be a do-gooder which I am like a volunteer from… most of my single days were spent volunteering, always have a heart to help people; so that was the other personality trait. And then the other one was a history of trauma, which as I began unpacking my childhood… and I think that's something that we women are really do, “Oh yeah, it was… yeah, it was a little… you know, a little hick up here,” and their dad was an alcoholic and, yeah, there was a little bit of… so, but it… you know, it pushed my buttons, seeing those 3 factors and going, “Ooh, yes, that would be me.”

J: Mm-hmm.

T: So I began digging in, got connected with a wonderful resource on the Internet of TMS wiki, because I found out TMS stands for Tension Myositis Syndrome or mind-body syndrome. And basically, the whole theory behind it is, personality traits and trauma do things in your brain. So if you're raised in a stressful environment as a child, your brain physiology… I mean, this is… physiologically, it's pumping out those stress hormones.

J: Mm-hmm.

T: And it trains the brain to live at this level of constantly having the fight flight or freeze mechanism triggered.

J: Hmm, mm-hmm.

T: And all of this stuff was like, “Oh my gosh, he is reading my mail.” And now, this is the part to where I get about sacred clutter. As I was reading about that and could really identify with the childhood trauma, I realized I had not visited things that I needed to visit that I need it to work through.

J: Mm-hmm.

T: Stuff that I had packaged up in a box and put a ‘do not go there’ on the package and tucked it away, and come to find out with… with what I was dealing with, and even statistically speaking, the development of fibromyalgia is… you showed me a woman with fibromyalgia and I'll show you a woman who has had some kind of trauma or some severe stress in her life either, you know, on an ongoing basis and then the personality tendency. So I knew I needed to begin addressing this stuff through journaling and it was really, really painful, but I knew I needed to do it. And through this… I'm kind of giving you the abbreviated version…

J: Mm-hmm.

T: … of what's going on. And, you know what? I also passed over… I think I touched upon the mechanism that causes the chronic pain.

J: Mm-hmm.

T: Basically, with fibromyalgia, because of what's going on in the brain and the emotions, the brain will signal out a… or it will send a signal to cause a mild oxygen deprivation…

J: Oh.

T: … to the muscle, to the… to the headache, whatever it might be. And this is really significant because I did have a history of a car accident, broke some vertebrae, fractured my skull; I mean, I was… should have been killed. And what the brain will do, it will choose those sites where there's a weakness in the body or maybe a herniated disk and that is… that's the place that the body's going to target with this mild oxygen deprivation. And it's really interesting, it sounds woo-woo to a lot of people, a lot of people aren't even open to this because it comes back to that, “Well, it's in your head.” No, it's not in your head, but it is a brain thing and the pain is very real. So what's interesting about this, some of the latest research on fibromyalgia done over in… I think it was somewhere in Scandinavia, that they were able to determine that part of the pain mechanism going on with people with fibromyalgia is a mild oxygen deprivation; exactly what Dr. Sarno…

J: Oh.

T: Yeah. So, anyway, I was… it was like this amazing, I'd say a drug trip or something of… wow, all these things that… that your… your eyes are being opened to, you know, what's going on inside you and the connection with the pain. I began journaling about, you know, “What is my neck trying to tell me when my neck is really bothersome and causing me a headache?” Ooh, well, gee, little Sally came to mind when I was writing about that.

J: Ah.

T: You know, Sally’s the one who's been a thorn in my side, but I smile and greet her warmly and, you know, just stuff like that; and we women are so good at doing that. So I began seeing how this played out and how it was contributing to my pain.

J: Mm-hmm.

T: So anyway, so I'm going through this emotional journey and I think we can move into the victory part now, yes? (Laughs)

J: Yes, yes.

T: So I had this really wonderful moment. One of the things that dr. Serrano says is, “Get rid of all the artifacts of your ‘I'm broken’ narrative.”

J: Mm.

T: And, for me, I had amassed quite a collection of stretchy bands and exercise sheets and I had these really expensive custom orthotics for my shoes. I had a heel lift, I used my little walking sticks to… I mean it was… ugh. So I threw them out and it scared… scared the daylights out of me because these were like 300… 3, $400 orthotics.

J: Yeah.

T: And… you know, and after having been told by, not just podiatrist, but PT's and, “Oh, well, your mechanisms are off,” and this and just all this stuff; so I threw him out.

J: Mm-hmm.

T: Then I went for a walk, a 2-mile walk…

J: Mm-hmm.

T: … with no pain.

J: Ah!

T: It was amazing, Jen. I came home, usually, I would do a nice massage afterwards, take some ibuprofen, I was pain free.

J: So put the pieces together for us, where did the pain go?

T: The pain, I… I would like to say that it was absolutely gone and… and, you know, like it's a straight journey; it isn't. The pain is, I was able to recognize… and this is one of the strategies that Dr. Sarno says is to first recognize that, “There's nothing wrong with my legs; my legs are fine. I have mind-body syndrome. I have Tension Myositis Syndrome,” these symptoms, it's basically self-talk…

J: Hmm.

T: …. telling myself that, “These symptoms are benign. There's nothing wrong with me. The pain is caused by a mild oxygen deprivation. I need to journal and sort out my sacred clutter,” as I call it.

J: Mm-hmm.

T: And, I mean, it was a huge turning point for me and it was also an indicator that I knew. And I had also gone, by the way, and saw one of the leading experts on mind-body syndrome and he confirmed my diagnosis. You know, with my nursing background, I was kind of a tough sell on that, and especially because of all the history that I had with, you know, these professionals tell me, oh, I've got a leg length discrepancy while you're blah-blah-blah. My favorite diagnosis was the doctor just telling me, “Hey, you've got sh for a back.”

J: Ah. (Laughs)

T: And so I had all of these things that I had internalized. And, you know, those realities that we speak to ourself….

J: Mm-hmm.

T: … and reinforce over… those are powerful.

J: Mm-hmm.

T: My gosh, we create so much reality, nut seeing this connection to physical symptoms was really huge. And, you know, I had another moment where I knew I need it to journal about some especially painful stuff in my childhood. And that morning, the tendonitis in my wrist flared up so bad and I thought, “I can't write,” and… and that's where I thought, “Mm-mm, no, your… your wrist is fine, Theresa; there's nothing wrong with your wrist,” and I pressed through and guess what? The pain left.

J: Oh, wow, that's impressive.

T: You know, it's really amazing, that's the other thing that Dr. Sarno talks about, he calls it the symptom imperative. And I… I was just a classic at, you know, they treat the blown out Achilles on my one foot with, “Oh, well, it's leg length discrepancy. It's this. It's because of the back injury 30 years ago. It's blah-blah-blah-blah.” Well, then that gets cleared up and guess what? The other Achilles acts up.

J: Oh yeah.

T: You know, so the symptoms are constantly moving around. And the whole idea is, the brain in the subconscious is trying to keep you away from those painful memories, trying to keep you away from the reality that you find deeply in conflict with who you are and what you want to be.

J: Mm-hmm.

T: And instead of dealing with that, the brain says, “Hey, I'll help you with that. I'll distract you with a symptom,” and so there we go. It's just….

J: Yeah.

T: … non-ending plight of symptoms. And, you know, for some people it might be, you know, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder or a gambling thing. For me, it was chronic pain; that was my go-to distraction was chronic pain.

J: So you work with women who have faced a similar set of symptoms from fibromyalgia today, and you kind of help them replace this negative self-talk with something more positive and then they can kind of work through their past issues and heal their pain?

T: Absolutely, absolutely.

J: Hmm.

T: And… you know, and I should say here, I was just listening to Dr. Sarno's… I've got an audio book, I listen to it frequently, very few people are willing to accept the diagnosis; 10 to 15% of the people will say, “Yes, that's me.” You know, it's a really difficult thing to set down the medical narrative in the medical model. And I should say, before you say, “Yeah, I've got mind-body syndrome,” it is important that somebody get cleared from their doctor to say, “Yeah, you don't have a tumor growing or some kind of an infection.”

J: Oh yes.

T: But if there is a… you know, some kind of a chronic pain syndrome going around or that you've been diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome, repetitive strain injury, plantar fasciitis, all of these things that are kind of in vogue right now and I know I'm saying that I can… you know, it's very offensive because this is such a new idea to people, but really, it's… it's not; it's been around for a long time. I mean, if you check in with some of these, you know, so-called primitive cultures, if there's a person with an illness, you know, they might ask, “Well, when did you stop dancing? What's going on? With you what's going on emotionally with you?” and that line of inquiry is just not even approached with… with our medical model; the structural medical model that we have.

J: Mm-hmm.

T: And I think if doctors started sitting down going, “Okay, tell me about the history of this headache. What was going on in your life at that time?” You know, for me, I was a very stressed out homeschool mom when my symptoms were just getting worse and worse.

J: Mm-hmm.

T: All these pressures on me, the demands that I had put on myself and then entering to the pain picture. So… and I see so many people with the same thing, just this development of chronic pain and chronic issues.

T: “You’re doing okay? Did you deal with that trauma from your childhood?”

J: Mm-hmm.

T: And it's not even… you know, and some people do need therapy to push through; they need to have a professional help them unpack that stuff. But, you know, for a lot of people, just giving voice to their story is so healing.

J: Yeah. So you have people Journal, are there self-care types of steps that help them with this process as well?

T: Journaling is really, really important. The other thing is to challenge their body, you know, start walking. If you can't walk without a limp, that's okay, just walk down to the end of the street. And while you're walking, you remind yourself, “There is nothing wrong; there is nothing wrong.” Some people have reported… now, not people that I've worked with, but on this TMS wiki forum… forum. And it's amazing, some of these people read the book and boom, they're instantly healed, you know, it's like a some kind of a faith healing meeting.

J: Uh-huh.

T: I'm not one of them; I wish I was. (Laughs)

J: Mm-hmm.

T: But, you know, I've had a lot of stuff to unpack, so journaling is really important, and speaking kindly to their body.

J: Yeah.

T: I mean, asking if there's a pain there that self-talk of me, “What are you trying to tell me?”

J: Ah.

T: Yeah, I would have dismissed that several years ago as this woo-woo talk, but now, I'm… I’m seeing the wisdom of the mind body.

J: Okay.

T: So if my knee is hurting, I don't immediately go, “Oh, I probably pulled something that…” you know, sure, I might have pulled something, but, “What's going on? Are you afraid of moving forward in something?” And following that line of inquiry has brought me far more pain relief than, “Oh, I should probably make an appointment with the PT.”

J: Yeah, right.

T: Because none of that stuff ever worked and, I mean, I did everything.

J: Yeah.

T: So…

J: So even though you've come so far and… and you're… you're on this healing journey and helping others on the same journey…

T: Mm-hmm.

J: … share a current weakness you struggle with or challenge that weighs you down and that you're continuing to work on.

T: Well, let's see here, I'll unfold the list; it's quite lengthy.

J: Ooh!

[Laughter]

T: Hear the crinkling of paper.

J: Ah. (Laughs)

T: You know, I think it's… it's a day-by-day process, Jen. Every day is a challenge, and I don't mean that, you know, from a pain standpoint, there certainly can be pain flare-ups, but, you know, challenging that script that plays out in the back of my mind every day, you know, be it the unworthy script or the, you know, “You're too fat. You're too this. Oh, you listen to those other women, they're fabulous and you're just like, you know, chopped liver.”

J: Mm-hmm.

T: Challenging that is a day-to-day thing. Now, I think it gets easier as you break the conditioned thinking that you've been doing, you know, the stinking thinking as some of the MLM people will say. But I think that that's a daily choice, that you get up and you choose to change your thinking and you choose to address to frame your day differently, to look at it and go, “Wow, man, it's a really tough day,” versus, “Hey, this is a challenge, I'm going to learn something today.”

J: Yeah, that's great.

T: So, yeah, that's a daily process. I'd like to say, “Oh, life is just, you know, rainbows and unicorns,” but… (Laughs)

J: Yep, yep.

T: But… but being real with it, that's… that's where the joy is; is being real with the weaknesses…

J: Mm-hmm.

T: … and acknowledging the shadow inside of me and the… you know, the person that wants to throat punch somebody and recognizing that, but not going and beating myself up and then, “Oh my gosh, I've got a headache because I've had this bad girl/good girl conflict going on in my head.”

J: Mm-hmm.

T: Did that just make sense? (Laughs)

J: Oh, yes, yes, yes. Well, so if people were interested in working with you, where could they find you?

J: Well, we'll go ahead and transition into hearing about your favorite things; this is a fun part of the show.

T: Yeah.

J: So what's a favorite personal habit that contributes to your success?

T: Well, I've got 3 things that are just… when I get up in the morning, coffee time; that's where I drink way too much coffee.

J: Mm-hmm.

T: And I use that time to read and Journal.

J: Mm-hmm.

T: And then the other part, for me, has been got to exercise, got to move that body.

J: Hmm, mm-hmm.

T: So those are huge. If I drop out of one of those for more than a day or so, things start to get funky in my head. So that's what I… I cling to those things quite regularly.

J: And you have it as a habit, which helps you to do them over and over and over; yep, a routine.

T: Absolutely, absolutely. You know, and it's something that I enjoy too.

J: Mm-hmm.

T: So I think that's part of the soul nurturing that we need to do, especially as women because we get so busy serving everybody else. Yeah, so it's something I enjoy doing.

J: Cool. So what's your favorite easy meal that you like to eat regularly?

T: Okay, can I combine this with my favorite kitchen gadget?

J: Yeah, perfect.

T: Okay, I have a new toy that I just love! I it's called the Instant Pot. And this is not a paid endorsement, but I love this thing.

[Laughter]

T: It's a combination… that used to be my KitchenAid mixer, but I don't bake much anymore since the kids are grown.

J: Mm-hmm.

T: But my Instant Pot is amazing! It does… it slices, it dices, it's like the (unclear) [25:36].

[Laughter]

T: It's a slow cooker, you can sauté, you can pressure cook in it, you can do all sorts of amazing things. It doesn't clean windows, but it is fabulous, I use it almost every day. So, yes, go check it out on Amazon; Instant Pot.

J: What's your favorite… you know, what do you like to make in an Instant Pot?

T: Anything that I can throw into there and forget about it.

J: Mm-hmm.

T: You know, yesterday, it was some frozen meatballs I threw in there and they cooked in 15 minutes.

J: Mm, oh.

T: It might be rice… yeah, one dish meals, baby, whatever I can dump in there and forget about it, that's my favorite meal.

J: So this is a Crock-Pot on steroids, essentially.

T: Oh… oh, yeah, it's so much more.

[Laughter]

T: So much more than a Crock-Pot.

J: Okay.

T: Yeah, check it out, it really is a fabulous tool. It cooks rice and it cooks dry beans and…

J: Ooh!

T: It's just amazing, yeah.

J: Okay. What's your current favorite book that you'd recommend to the Vibrant Happy Women community?

T: You know, it was hard picking one because I'm a voracious reader and there's so many thinkers that I love, but I would say Brené Brown’s latest book, ‘Rising Strong’…

J: Okay.

T: … is a fabulous read. It really talks about the shame mechanisms that we have and basically saying, “This is who I am,” and saying it without shame and living authentically. So, yeah, love that book. I love Brené Brown.

J: Me too.

T: If you haven't seen her TED talk, you need to see her TED talk; it's fabulous.

J: Okay. Brené Brown, ‘Rising Strong’ and her TED talk, go ahead…

T: Yeah.

J: We'll put those links on the show notes page as well. Okay, what's the best advice you've ever received?

T: “Be true to yourself.” You know, and everybody says that, but, you know, doing it is a totally nother matter (Laughs). But that's truly the best advice I've received, “Be true to yourself.”

J: Mm-hmm, great. So, Theresa, now the final question, if you had to create a formula of actions that maximize your happiness, what would that include?

T: That would include… well, I am happiest when I live wholeheartedly, love generously, and have the courage to speak my truth.

J: Ooh, and you're doing just; that look at you.

T: Yeah!

J: This was a great, great interview, I love it; you are speaking your truth. (Laughs)

T: Oh, it’s been such a pleasure, Jen, it's been a pleasure.

J: Well, before we say goodbye, let's have one last parting challenge from you to the listeners.

T: Okay. Well, that challenge would be… and I've told my husband, if I ever got a tattoo (which I probably won’t)…

J: (Laughs)

T: But if I ever got one, it would read, “Who told you that?” because so much of what we do has been shaped by what people have told us; societal expectations or, you know, groupthink. So my challenge would be to have people pause and say, “Who told you that?”

J: Oh.

T: “What's the internal self-talk that's going on?” You… you look for that, find out who told you that, and then challenge it.

J: Ooh, love it. Well, thank you so much for being on the show today, Theresa. And, again, if people wanted to find you, where should they go?

T: theresalode.com, and also, I've got some free e-books if anybody wants an e-book, and if they want to sign up for… I'm working on an e-book called ‘Freedom From Fibromyalgia’ right now.

J: Mm-hmm.

T: I'm and feverishly working on that. If they want to subscribe to my blog, they'll get notification when that's hot off the presses. But I’ve got a couple of other e-books, ones a collection of humorous essays, ‘The Mother Lode's Guide to Putting the Fun Back in Dysfunction’. And then I've got one on parent-to-parent talk on ADHD; the book that I wish I had. And, you know, come visit me on my blog and I'll send you the e-books, I've got some more in the works right now, but yeah, they want to come over and say, “Hey, get me an e-book,” I'll send them one.

J: Perfect. So thank you so much, Theresa, this has been a lot of fun.

T: Oh, Thank you Jen, the pleasure's been all mine.

J: Take care.

Thanks so much for joining us today, and be sure to go to the show notes page at jenriday.com/21 to find links to Theresa's blog where you can get copies of her free e-books. I was over there on Theresa's blog and it's pretty funny, so be sure to take a look. Be sure to join me next time when I talk with Stacy Myers from Humorous Homemaking. Stacy has the best attitude about being a homemaker, in fact, she calls herself a home manager; a little fancier. And we talk on that episode about Crock-Pots and the KonMari method, which is de-cluttering your home by keeping only the things that bring you joy. Lots of great tips in that episode and Stacy's just plain funny, so be sure to be there. Also, don't forget to go over to vibranthappyliving.com and check out our new membership site. It has a lot of answers if you're seeking more peace and balance and happiness in your life. See you next time. Take care.

Outro: Thanks for listening to the Vibrant Happy Women podcast at www.jenriday.com.